Newly Found Remains of a 390 Million-year-old Forest Reveals Something Mysterious About Ancient Trees

The Debrief ^ | March 8, 2024 | MJ Banias

[SunkenCiv]

Researchers have uncovered the earliest fossil evidence of ancient forests in the British record. The findings uncover a novel and unrecognized 390-million-year-old forest landscape that sheds new light on the early evolution of Earth's land-based biosphere.

...the study focuses on the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation in Somerset and Devon, in Southwest England, and reveals an ancient era where a forest would have lived, dominated by cladoxylopsid trees...

These trees, growing up to 2-4 meters tall, had narrow trunks with an expanded rounded base up to 20 cm in diameter and small roots. They formed densely spaced forests, shedding abundant plant debris...

The trunks of these ancient trees were hollow in the center, and had rings of woody support strands around the outside. Leaves would have been fairly new on the evolutionary timeline, showing up about 20 million years prior to this forest; these trees had twig-like structures protruding from the branches...

One of the more remarkable findings was at Culver Cliff in Somerset, where at least 17 cladoxylopsid tree trunks were found preserved on a single bedding surface. The trunks, measuring 5-10 cm in diameter and up to 1.4 meters in length, provide a glimpse into the spacing and density of these ancient forests. These were tight spaces, jam-packed with early life.

But these ancient forests were responsible for something else. They played a key role in shaping the earliest 'modern' riverbanks.

The study's authors suggest that the cladoxylopsid trees colonized a sizable distributive fluvial system that essentially reshaped the landscape between land and a nearby waterway. All this flora was responsible for sediment accumulation, and their roots held the soils together enough to essentially create an early riverbank.

[gleeaikin]

Excuse me, exactly who did I insult as I did not ping you, and the only names mentioned were Sunken Civ and Abraham? Why do you need to insult me with such a dishonest claim?

First of all I did go to the Bible when I learned about Bishop Ushers claim of a specific month, day, and year for the days that created the earth. Since he created his precise date based on counting the years of begats, I tried to do the same. Given the biblical information that is impossible. In honesty, he could have given some approximation, but never a precise point in time.

It was impossible for there to be days before there was a sun and a rotating earth. I don’t remember the Bible saying when He created all the stars like our sun. But we have no information on that in the Bible that I recall. There may have been God and parts of the universe long before there was earth in a livable form. Since day and night for earth is based on the speed of rotation of the earth, do you know how fast the earth was rotating for the first day and night after creation? All the Bible talks about is the evening and the morning being a day. We have no idea how long a day was in the beginning. Therefore, no way to judge how long ago creation took place.

You have no honest business coming to a science oriented site and then accusing people of insulting people. That is a most unChristian bit of behavior. Please go back to the religious sites to enjoy yourself and argue, and stop bothering people at science sites who are merely enjoying their God given right to compare and discuss the complexities of the universe and the nature of God’s gifts and creations. After all, if God created the human brain, would we be insulting Him if we did not use it in creative ways?

[gleeaikin]

I just reread my comment #36, so I guess I might have insulted the murdering dictator of Iraq. But he is no longer here to feel insulted, thank God.